Kindle
This article should really be a merging of tech and books - I was lucky enough to be given a Kindle for my birthday!
This is really a perfect gift for a geekish reader. I wasn't sure I was going to appreciate it, as, when it comes to books and reading, I am a bit of a Luddite. I like the smell of books, the heft of them in my hand, the typeface, the feel of the paper.
Of course, that was more true once upon a time than now, and I still love to read an old book just for those reasons - it's simply a lovely sensory experience, as well as a feast for the imagination.
But many modern books, along with the abysmal failure of editing, simply aren't the works of art they once were: very often, too, we read a book in paperback form, which is in many ways more of a trial than a pleasure. You're lucky if the glue doesn't give up the ghost long before you're finished, and you find yourself holding pages in place while you read, or resorting to the old scotch tape on the binding trick.
So, along comes an electronic book, and the adjustment isn't nearly as profound as it might have been, say, 20 years ago.
Naturally, once the computer made its way into the average person's home, it didn't take long for bookish sorts to want to move the Library of Congress to electronic form.
In fact, the Guttenberg Project was, and still is, an attempt to do just that - create an electronic version of all the books in the public domain, making them, ostensibly, available to any and all readers who have access to a computer.
Interestingly, a PDF document is considered an "ebook" of sorts. Meant to be read rather than edited, a PDF maintains the wording and the layout of the document as it was originally created, as well as compressing the file size of the book, periodical, or document, to a slightly-more-manageable size than a word processing document.
Stand-alone e-readers have been around for quite a while, but it was only in the last few years that they really started to become an acceptable alternative to paper-and-ink. By 2009, the Amazon Kindle and the Sony Reader had actually gained some marketshare, even at their roughly $250+ pricetag, and Amazon, of course, had the great advantage of selling its ebooks via its already popular marketplace, whereas Sony asked you to logon to Sony Connect to make purchases.
Evidently the model was working well enough that superb marketer Barnes and Nobel jumped into the fray with the Nook ereader, which teams up with Barnes and Nobels' extensive library, and Apple, coming at the whole thing from its never-to-be-ordinary direction added the iPad to the mix - which, true to Apple's typical approach, is a book reader plus way, way, way more. (And it's also way more expensive!)
From the standpoint of the form factor and usability, the readers (with the exception of the iPad) are all pretty much the same. While one has a keypad (Kindle) and another softkeys (Nook), a more difficult choice is size and shape. They're all more or less rectangular, but some have a cover so that they open kind of like a book, and some are very large which makes for better reading for newspapers and periodicals.
In making a choice, the best thing you can do is literally pick up each one, think about how you're going to use it (books, carry it around a lot, newspapers on your commute, etc.) and choose accordingly.
For my purposes, the Kindle is just right. I will admit that the shape and weight are taking a little getting used to, particularly as I tend to do a lot of my reading either in bed or a lounge chair in the yard. The "book" is a little small, and doesn't balance quite right in two hands, but is too big for one. Also, as you read a single "page" on the reader twice as fast as two, even two paperback pages, you're hitting the "next page" button far more frequently than turning a page, so the whole process feels a bit more fatiguing.
On the plus side, you can choose orientation (portrait or landscape), font size, and other readability characteristics. Buying a book, even shopping for a book, is easy. And with the Kindle, you get Amazon's famous "You'll be interested in" knowledge of its repeat customers' tastes and preferences.
The battery life on the Kindle is nice and long (about two weeks with WiFi turned off, about seven days with WiFi enabled). The device has a 2 gigabyte memory (about 1.2 of that is available for storing your books). Speaking of WiFi, that's more or less how you order books, though you can hook the device up to your computer via USB - which is also how you'll charge it up. Using either a USB connection to your computer, or the included USB to wall outlet plug, you can charge your Kindle quickly and easily.
Among other special features, the Kindle will "read" PDFs, and supports text-to-voice if you feel like listening instead of reading.
Once you've started a book, the Kindle "marks" your place, so as soon as you access that book again, you're returned to the place where you left off. I do find that I'm not as likely to quite remember where I left off in a book when reading via Kindle. Maybe that's something that will stop being as noticeable once I've gotten used to the interface. You can read several books simultaneously, which of course is important to me, as well as a variety of newspapers and periodicals. You can also markup a document, and check for word meanings and further information.
All in all, I am very happy with my Kindle - though I have to admit, it will never entirely replace my love affair with physical books. But for ease of access, and for the ability to pull four books out of my purse while sitting in a waiting room, it can't be beat.
This is really a perfect gift for a geekish reader. I wasn't sure I was going to appreciate it, as, when it comes to books and reading, I am a bit of a Luddite. I like the smell of books, the heft of them in my hand, the typeface, the feel of the paper.
Of course, that was more true once upon a time than now, and I still love to read an old book just for those reasons - it's simply a lovely sensory experience, as well as a feast for the imagination.
But many modern books, along with the abysmal failure of editing, simply aren't the works of art they once were: very often, too, we read a book in paperback form, which is in many ways more of a trial than a pleasure. You're lucky if the glue doesn't give up the ghost long before you're finished, and you find yourself holding pages in place while you read, or resorting to the old scotch tape on the binding trick.
So, along comes an electronic book, and the adjustment isn't nearly as profound as it might have been, say, 20 years ago.
Naturally, once the computer made its way into the average person's home, it didn't take long for bookish sorts to want to move the Library of Congress to electronic form.
In fact, the Guttenberg Project was, and still is, an attempt to do just that - create an electronic version of all the books in the public domain, making them, ostensibly, available to any and all readers who have access to a computer.
Interestingly, a PDF document is considered an "ebook" of sorts. Meant to be read rather than edited, a PDF maintains the wording and the layout of the document as it was originally created, as well as compressing the file size of the book, periodical, or document, to a slightly-more-manageable size than a word processing document.
Stand-alone e-readers have been around for quite a while, but it was only in the last few years that they really started to become an acceptable alternative to paper-and-ink. By 2009, the Amazon Kindle and the Sony Reader had actually gained some marketshare, even at their roughly $250+ pricetag, and Amazon, of course, had the great advantage of selling its ebooks via its already popular marketplace, whereas Sony asked you to logon to Sony Connect to make purchases.
Evidently the model was working well enough that superb marketer Barnes and Nobel jumped into the fray with the Nook ereader, which teams up with Barnes and Nobels' extensive library, and Apple, coming at the whole thing from its never-to-be-ordinary direction added the iPad to the mix - which, true to Apple's typical approach, is a book reader plus way, way, way more. (And it's also way more expensive!)
From the standpoint of the form factor and usability, the readers (with the exception of the iPad) are all pretty much the same. While one has a keypad (Kindle) and another softkeys (Nook), a more difficult choice is size and shape. They're all more or less rectangular, but some have a cover so that they open kind of like a book, and some are very large which makes for better reading for newspapers and periodicals.
In making a choice, the best thing you can do is literally pick up each one, think about how you're going to use it (books, carry it around a lot, newspapers on your commute, etc.) and choose accordingly.
For my purposes, the Kindle is just right. I will admit that the shape and weight are taking a little getting used to, particularly as I tend to do a lot of my reading either in bed or a lounge chair in the yard. The "book" is a little small, and doesn't balance quite right in two hands, but is too big for one. Also, as you read a single "page" on the reader twice as fast as two, even two paperback pages, you're hitting the "next page" button far more frequently than turning a page, so the whole process feels a bit more fatiguing.
On the plus side, you can choose orientation (portrait or landscape), font size, and other readability characteristics. Buying a book, even shopping for a book, is easy. And with the Kindle, you get Amazon's famous "You'll be interested in" knowledge of its repeat customers' tastes and preferences.
The battery life on the Kindle is nice and long (about two weeks with WiFi turned off, about seven days with WiFi enabled). The device has a 2 gigabyte memory (about 1.2 of that is available for storing your books). Speaking of WiFi, that's more or less how you order books, though you can hook the device up to your computer via USB - which is also how you'll charge it up. Using either a USB connection to your computer, or the included USB to wall outlet plug, you can charge your Kindle quickly and easily.
Among other special features, the Kindle will "read" PDFs, and supports text-to-voice if you feel like listening instead of reading.
Once you've started a book, the Kindle "marks" your place, so as soon as you access that book again, you're returned to the place where you left off. I do find that I'm not as likely to quite remember where I left off in a book when reading via Kindle. Maybe that's something that will stop being as noticeable once I've gotten used to the interface. You can read several books simultaneously, which of course is important to me, as well as a variety of newspapers and periodicals. You can also markup a document, and check for word meanings and further information.
All in all, I am very happy with my Kindle - though I have to admit, it will never entirely replace my love affair with physical books. But for ease of access, and for the ability to pull four books out of my purse while sitting in a waiting room, it can't be beat.
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